Introduction

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The World of Perfect Pitch

The topic I want to investigate is the difference between music by musicians with perfect pitch (PP) vs relative pitch (RP). In a lot of musical scenes, perfect pitch (or absolute pitch) is adored like it is some kind of godsend. On one hand, perfect pitch only means you can identify pitches quickly, which would not necessarily make you a better musician. On the other hand, using it as a tool to learn music theory faster and easily identifying pitches when playing in some kind of ensemble could really make someone a better (subjectively, of course) musician. Listening to music is not the same as playing music and identifying music is not the same either. It is important to note that I use the word relative pitch here as any non-absolute pitch hearing, since everyone seems to have some kind of natural understanding of relative pitches (even the untrained ear can usually distinguish the octave from the minor second for example). This is not necessarily the general use of the term relative pitch, but it is a way for me not to have to distinguish between all identified types of non-perfect pitch hearing.

It’s not hard to identify that my natural comparison groups consists of artists (PP artists vs RP artists). However, unbiased sampling of these artists is not a simple ordeal. Just choosing some random PP and RP artists would easily fall to biases, so I have put some thought and consideration into how I want to sample the artists. Keeping differences that are due to genre out of the comparison will definitely be one of the biggest challenges for researching this corpus. For this reason, I have decided to compare specific artists with PP to artists with RP who fall into the same genre of music at approximately the same time period and with a similar caliber. This will not be able to provide a thorough conclusion, but it will hopefully provide some information into the differences between muscians with PP and those without.

I will also do some more in-depth analyses of particular songs or pieces. I think the most interesting artist to research in this corpus is Jacob Collier, since he seems to have one of the most brilliant and specific perfect pitches known to humankind, and he has made some astoundingly complex music, in which absolute pitch definitely seems to have had an impact in the way he has challenged conventional music theory rules. The problem with this however, is that his music can be so complex that especially the analyses based on pitch can be so complex that it will be very hard to capture with the algorithms made for western music with twelve tone equal temperament that I will be using.

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Playlists and their artists

Genre PP artist RP artist Number of tracks per playlist
Rock Jimi Hendrix Cream 40
Classical W.A. Mozart FJ Haydn 62
Pop Charlie Puth Nick Jonas 45
Jazz Oscar Peterson Red Garland 49

n = 196 N = 392

Perfect Pitch

Hey Joe 1: Why are we looking at Hey Joe’s key?

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As you can see in Adam Neely’s video, the key of Hey Joe, by Jimi Hendrix (who has PP and is in the PP playlist), has a key that is somewhat ambiguous. To look at the ambiguity, one can look at a keygram, which shows all keys and can basically show which key is more likely than another key. In the next tab we’ll take a look at what happens.

Hey Joe 2: In what key is Hey Joe? A Keygram.

Novelty function of Everlasting Motion (Jacob Collier featuring Hamid El Kasri)


I have tried to make the tempogram work but so far my laptop has refused to do the amount of work that is necessary for a tempogram, which is why I have settled for a novelty function for now. I haven’t spent much time on anything else, so the portfolio really hasn’t improved very much. I will probably do most of the work on the weekend before the deadline of the portfolio after all of my exams.

LA Girls - Charlie Puth chordogram


I haven’t been able to do much yet, but at least here is a chord-o-gram of a song by Charlie Puth who has PP.

The structure of Hideaway by Jacob Collier (tonal and timbral self-similarity matrices)


In the pitch graph, you can see very clear boxes, especially around the 200-300 mark. These indicate novelty. The 200-300 mark is the bridge, which is why it is the clearest box (since bridges are, generally, melodically very different from the verse and chorus). You can also see some diagonal lines around the 75-200 mark, which indicate repetition. In the timbre graph however, you do not see these diagonal lines, apart from the one through the middle that indicates that we’re graphing the same song against itself. This means that there seems to be no or very little repetition within timbre. However, since the whole timbre matrix is almost completely blue, this indicates that there is very little timbral change.

PP versus RP

First let’s compare a classical piece written by an artist with PP vs RP


A comparison of the playlists “This is Mozart” and “This is Haydn”. Mozart had absolute pitch, while Haydn did not. As you might be able to see, Haydn’s pieces have a wider range of valence for both his minor and major pieces than Mozart, especially in the high valence (positive mood) range. The compositions of both artists have a low level of energy, which is consistent with their style, but interpretations of the pieces by the orchestras performing the pieces could also have an effect. Mozart’s pieces also seem to have a wider distribution of energy in his pieces in major.

Conclusions

I haven’t concluded anything

About the author

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Image of me

An image of me

Favorite Tracks

name artist.name album.name
California Fashawn California
On The Sunny Side Of The Street Dizzy Gillespie Dizzy 100
Frontin’ (feat. Jay-Z) - Club Mix Pharrell Williams The Neptunes Present… Clones
Ether Nas Stillmatic
Megitsune BABYMETAL BABYMETAL
Will Call (feat. Elliott Skinner & Victoria Canal) Brasstracks Golden Ticket
Foto’s Van Jou En Mij (Flits) F Drama Op De Dansvloer
Toast Koffee Rapture EP
Jive Samba - Live In Japan/1963 / 1989 Digital Remaster / Digital Version Cannonball Adderley Blue Note Trip 8: Swing Low/Fly High
Layla Derek & The Dominos Magic Of The Seventies

Top Artists

name genres
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu j-idol, japanese electropop
Jacob Collier indie soul, uk alternative pop
Jason Mraz acoustic pop, neo mellow, pop, pop rock
BABYMETAL comic metal, idol rock, j-metal, kawaii metal
The California Honeydrops bay area indie, deep new americana, funk, indie folk, modern funk
Eminem detroit hip hop, hip hop, rap
50 Cent east coast hip hop, gangster rap, hip hop, pop rap, queens hip hop, rap
blackwave. belgian hip hop
Snoop Dogg g funk, gangster rap, hip hop, pop rap, rap, west coast rap
John Coltrane bebop, cool jazz, free jazz, jazz, jazz saxophone

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About me

I’ll add text later. This is randomly generated post-modernism. “Class is fundamentally responsible for hierarchy,” says Sartre; however, according to Werther[1] , it is not so much class that is fundamentally responsible for hierarchy, but rather the absurdity of class. The main theme of Reicher’s[2] critique of the semiotic paradigm of discourse is the role of the observer as reader.

The primary theme of the works of Pynchon is not, in fact, narrative, but prenarrative. However, Sontag’s essay on Lyotardist narrative implies that academe is capable of significance. Cameron[3] suggests that we have to choose between Lacanist obscurity and patriarchialist neodialectic theory.

In the works of Pynchon, a predominant concept is the concept of textual consciousness. It could be said that Lacan uses the term ‘subsemantic discourse’ to denote the stasis, and eventually the defining characteristic, of capitalist language. Bataille promotes the use of predialectic desublimation to read sexual identity.